1975/12/01 by Paul Romney · 2 citations
Social Sciences · Psychology · #Canadian Identity and History #Ideology #Character (mathematics) #Politics #Power (physics) #Subject (documents) #Field (mathematics) #Personality #Psychoanalysis #Sociology #Law #History #Psychology #Political science #Computer science #Physics
paper · doi:10.3138/chr-056-04-02
published in Canadian Historical Review 56(4), 416-436 (University of Toronto Press)
openalex publication_date 1975/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/04/05
IT IS HARD TO GET CLOSE to a man of such emphatic personality and decided political views as William Lyon Mackenzie and still be indifferent to him attraction or repulsion (perhaps both) must ensue. Mackenzie's life and works, therefore, form a subject loaded with emotional obstacles to its objective treatment, and a definitive estimate of his character and achievement is still lacking? Modem scholars have concentrated on the question of how seriously Mackenzie is to be taken as a political eader and ideologue. Lillian F. Gates and J.E. Rea have published thoughtful and sympathetic discussions of his political opinions, 2 while F.H. Armstrong has scrutinized his actions and found him apparently to be a bungling administrator, a corrupt and arbitrary wielder of power, and a thinker impossible to locate in any respectable stream of ideas? As a reaction, perhaps, to past glorification of Mackenzie, Dr Armstrong's assessment at present seems to hold the field. It is therefore